Apple received demands to change iTunes contract terms

The Finnish and Norwegian Consumer Ombudsmen along with French and German consumer organizations have demanded that the iTunes music store contract terms be altered to become more "consumer friendly". A letter has been sent to Apple from each country containing several requests. Once again, the "iPod-iTunes" tie is criticized for not giving consumers the option to play iTunes downloads on more players.

The group pushing Apple to offer consumers a fair deal believes that any contract terms that prevent users from playing their legally purchased music on more than one type of player should be removed. For now, the organizations recommend that consumer be allowed to rip CDs burned from iTunes downloads to DRM-free audio files that can be played with a variety of consumer electronics devices.

The mentioned method is already used by many iTunes customers regardless of whether it might be legal or not in the users' territory. As an official change of policy from Apple however, this could only serve as a temporary solution and the organizations have suggested that the company devise another solution and that development takes place by September 2007.

iTunes must also change its contract terms, losing the right to modify rules for using the service unilaterally. The company cannot modify existing contracts whenever and however it wants. iTunes must also change its terms so that the risk of damage to music files or of damage caused by them is divided more fairly between the company and the customer.

The group also demands that customers have the right to be covered by the legislation of their own country, calling attention to iTunes' contention that British law applies to sales.

15 user comments

one of my freinds got a free 2 gig nano v2 for going to some work related computer programing continuing education class paid for by his employer. he already has a great mp3 phone that is mpeg4 compatable so he just sold his free ipod online. why even suport apple by buying their overpriced hardware only to have to crack it all apart yourself later just to get it to do the things you want it to do. just get an envy

whats with the self advertizing? isnt anyone at the helm today and why do I want his price list. the fact that this isnt a blog why hasnt someone removed the Noak192 rambling? anyway back to the subject apple need sto change the way it sells it self how about making the itunes in mp3 format think of all the music they would sell more people would install it for the players and this would block microsoft from gaining any ground with their music store....

I think everyone especially those overseas have forgotten that Microsoft has begun using the exact same methods as Apple in terms of DRM contracts. Zunes own methods are exactly the same. Yet Microcrap has yet to get the same mandates as Apple has received from these ignorant countries. Since they are not the ones making money from Apples intelligent design they are just pissed. Lets say you live in France but want to download a song from somewhere in Britain. OHH Sorry you don't live in the right place, no can do. Lets face facts ANYTHING AMERICAN whether business or not is just trash to other countries. How about battling over something real. This whining excuse to attempt to extort money or preceived power is getting pathetic. Move On!

They only hit MS for winddozzzzzz, They should be requiring MS to also disable their DRM scheme as well. Then their is Rhapsody should disable their DRM. Well lets see how many others now. For the EU nations to blindly whine about this is getting ridiculous. As it was posted by another user (sorry can't remember the name) This is tanamount to the EU demanding that my PS3 games be playable on the XBOX 360 and if Sony does not open up their licensing that they will fine them for with holding this ability. Complete Crap, and all the EU wants is cash money! They want fairness only if it equates to them being able to make some all mighty dollars nothing more nothing less! Gee and people wonder why Europe is consistently the last to get all the new techno toys? Seems that maybe the EU GOVT's should spend time on real subjects and less about trying to find a way to blackmail money from others.

im not following with you on all that jazz. First, im not sure how fair consumer rights makes the "EU" any more money, especially in the short term. Secondly, the opposite of your statement would be that if the gov's of the US and Asia's would provide better consumer protection instead of allowing them to be crippled, then the playing field would be even and we could all share in wonderful technology at the same time. i guess im a glass is half full kinda guy.

Apple is receiving this backlash by the EU more because of anti-competition by Virgin & other big non-EU companies that want to p*ss off Apple. it would take too long to go into, but it's more politics than anything. Did you see anything in this news about Rhapsody or the other proprietary download services run by other companies? NO! I'll tell you why...politics. That is all it is, simply politics.
I do agree that British law should not apply to Apple's iTunes & should be based on each country's laws. The EU is still a group of 20+ countries & not all laws are the same. I'm very pleased that Norway is taking a stand against DRM & wishes to excite some debate on this. Let's hope Sweden/Finland & especially Germany pound the living daylights out of DRM. Because music just wants to be free :)

JEEEEEZ! People still BUY music? What's all the debate about on this forum? EVERYONE you know downloads all their tunes from P2P sites! Personally, I've got about 10K of MP3's and never paid a dime. I tend to go for the obscure and ancient, Rudy Vallee, for instance, and no amount of my $$ will do him much good! A boquet of roses on his grave daily, perhaps?
New and struggling, Only then will I'll pay.
Trust me! Paul McCartney and Elton John aren't going to miss your 99 cents! They clean their bodies by diving into piles of USD instead of showering, like the rest of us!

Well, rather than downloading them from P2P sites and eventually getting hit by the RIAA with the obligatory $5,000 settlement lawsuit (haha), I just use my XM radio home kit to record music to my personal computer. I then separate out the individual songs (using a great and free audio editor called Audacity) and save them as MP3 files. It's actually quite easy. I just record about 2-4 hours of music (usually while I'm away from home), and then when I come back I just leisurely skip through the file to see what songs I ended up with. It's almost easier than looking through an iTunes list, and it's a helluva lot cheaper.
In my household we have four different portable media devices (2 iPods -- NOT my idea -- one Creative Zen PMC, and one Palm PDA). I'm not going to buy four different copies of the same song because of stupid DRM restrictions.
As for any laws governing XM radio broadcasts -- good luck! XM radio hardware manufacturers make their own devices that record XM radio, so there's no way they're going to restrict me from doing the same thing using their same hardware (the home kit). I don't share the files with anyone outside of my own household (which is the only people I would buy music for anyway), and I pay a monthly fee to access XM radio.
If anyone in the music industry doesn't like that, then don't release you songs on XM radio. Then let's see how your CDs do. Greedy morons.